|
Cyrano4747 posted:Wonder if there's a way to make a thread that starts at like page -5000 and counts up. Noting this in case the forums disappear in the near future.
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2023 18:03
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 15:03 |
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:Wonder if there's a way to make a thread that starts at like page -5000 and counts up. Ah, like the calendar of the Theocracy of Muntab in the Discworld books. No-one knows what it's counting down to.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2023 19:22
|
|
|
unless astral has fixed a lot of ramshackle functionality in the past couple of years, it is almost certainly possible to make a thread start at page -5000, but you would have consequences like an old-fashioned critical success/failure chart from rolemaster or w/e on a roll of 4, every thread now begins at p -5000 on a roll of 13, every thread (except threads in coupons) becomes exactly 5000pp long. threads will be truncated if longer, or filled w empty posts to create new pages if shorter on a roll of 20, every post on the forums is now part of one giant thread, the pages of which alternate 5000 and -5000 as page numbers. if a user clicks the page dropdown to navigate, roll on the unexpected technical interactions chart for an additional effect
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2023 19:29
|
|
|
LITERALLY A BIRD posted:I care a lot about ancient Egyptian philosophy/rhetoric, but it's one of those things I care about in a way I worry others find everything I want to say about it far less interesting than I do -comes into a thread for people who are looking to learn ancient history -makes the most interesting ancient history posts in months -apologizes for being boring  , 
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2023 19:30
|
|
|
yeah I'm hooked on every word, this is the opposite of boring as someone who took an egyptology class for fun before dropping out of college, I do have one Egypt suggestion: if you like ancient stuff at all, definitely visit the pyramids at Giza if you have the chance. Touristy as they are, when I got to see them irl I cried. There's no way for pictures to do them justice
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2023 20:00
|
|
|
Hahaha, bless, thank you pals  just overly self-conscious. An effortpost is in this thread's future because if I am being given permission to soapbox about ma'at and Egyptian morality for an interested audience then by God(s), yes, I am taking it
LITERALLY A BIRD fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Jul 22, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2023 21:52
|
|
|
Any good admin law or bureaucratic translations from Egyptian texts? Government bureaucracy has always been a big kink of mine and especially seeing it in history and how nothing ever changes. I don't remember where I saw the Roman text but my favorite piece of a letter from around 100 AD somewhere in Gaul was something along the lines of: "Assistant magistrate Gaius was dispatched to the newly divided property lines on the outskirts of town to see about a building permit dispute, and it was found that a local Gaul was attempting to build a hut between two property lines and without a building permit, and would not relent and kept bothering us with questions. We recommend using security forces next time". And the image is just such a loving hilarious scene. Some proto-frenchman just in a goddamn field on the edge of woods is trying to build his goddamn shack and these two toga-wearing rear end motherfuckers with their fancy city talk are there  "well mister you obviously need a permit to build this plus this property line clearly goes here" while the Gaul is like  "what the gently caress is a _building permit_? Please go the gently caress away before I hit you with this goddamn club"Digest of Justinian 8.2.14 has some building codes, and Strabo discusses various building codes. Roman building codes in cities and suburbs took off after the fire of 64, but the code styles and the idea of building permits and such spread with various speeds towards the other provinces. There was, to my knowledge, not a direct idea of zoning necessarily, but more of a property line surveyed by the public authorities, who'd then grant permission to build, and one developer usually built one style to the larger plot, so you'd in practice have an upper class neighborhood or a lower class neighborhood "zoned", even if the Magistrate did not directly zone the wealth level. There's some bigger nerds here like Grand Fromage who probably knows better. Approaching 100 AD and onwards, it gets more strict on what you can build outside the main city, the suburbs, so as to not have scattered hovel collection. Also, certain land was desirable despite being farther from city center, so the authorities did not want squatters to just claim it. However, surely as you go far enough from any city, most of this evaporates as a practical concern. Vahakyla fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Jul 23, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2023 03:01
|
|
|
LITERALLY A BIRD posted:Hahaha, bless, thank you pals Yeah, welcome to the thread! This is way more interesting than the silly Vegeta derail I started. Also, I'm guessing this explains the ankh you were always wearing in the selfie thread.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2023 06:06
|
|
|
So I think to talk at all about Egyptian philosophy the most important baseline to establish is a definition of something called ma’at. I know people that frequent this thread have grasps of history that range from “better than mine” to “way, way better than mine, and also have a degree in it”, and I want to apologize in advance for sounding like a huge layperson when discussing this. It’s because I am! But I am a layperson who has spent a lot of time personally concerned with how well I understand/don’t understand ma’at/ancient Egyptian religion and, furthermore, with whether I am consistently living my life in accordance to its guiding principles. “Religion? I thought we were talking about philosophy. The religion thread is that-a-way —> Well, yes, we are talking about philosophy, but here is why religion, and understanding what ma’at is, is fundamental to that discussion: Koramei posted:In a certain sense, what’s the difference between a philosopher and a priest? If your worldview is centered around your religion as opposed to natural science, your philosophers will be focusing their efforts on that. Maybe it makes it less applicable to other cultures, but aren’t they fundamentally similar? Koramei, I’m going to go ahead and point out that I’m pretty sure these were leading questions to begin with. I am not at all mad about it. But you already knew your answer here. Since so much of my understanding of Egyptian philosophy is rooted in personal belief and the motivation that arises thereof, I am going to have Henri Frankfort, research professor at the University of Chicago and author of 1948’s Ancient Egyptian Religion, explain why we can’t talk about Egyptian philosophy without Egyptian religion better than I could. I am transcribing these parts from a good old-fashioned book, so typos are on me, not him. Henri Frankfort’s “Ancient Egyptian Religion”: Preface posted:Egyptian religion aroused the interest of the West long before the hieroglyphs were deciphered. The fabulous antiquity of Egyptian civilization and its stupendous ruins have always suggested a background of profound wisdom. Plutarch set the fashion of writing under that impression, and it has continued to the present day. But the decipherment of the documents has disappointed centuries of expectation: it revealed a remarkable lack of philosophical content, at least in a form which we can assimilate. Stay with us here. Henri Frankfort posted:Instead the texts introduce us to an apparent jungle of religious matter, so impenetrable to our understanding that Egyptologists have increasingly shunned the task of interpretation. So here Frankfort refers to one of our problems. Egyptian religion was an enormous part of daily life. It was so thoroughly integrated with Egyptian culture there was no actual name for it — it held such powerful identity it was simply “religion”. Today we call it, “ancient Egyptian religion”. For the entire course of dozens of dynasties, Old Kingdom up through the Ptolemies, excepting only an Atenism-shaped cutout toward the rear of the New Kingdom, the ancient Egyptian religion helped shape Egypt’s culture and identity. Just about everybody can picture it: gold God statues, animal-headed men, women with wings, hieroglyphs and paintings of the Sun. But what is it about? Do you know? I mean, you, dear reader, I know you know it’s about ma’at, but that’s because you’re in the ancient history thread / have already read the first part of this post. Everyone knows about Egyptian religion but you might be surprised by how few know what it might be “about”. Sun worship, death worship, king worship, all common guesses; “wasn’t that a bunch of unrelated cults?” gets asked, or asserted, at times. But given most of our English language sources tend to focus on those parts over all the pesky boring moral and ethical stuff, those are what sticks in modern consciousness, and that’s not really those people’s faults. But it’s about ma’at. To continue, quote:Scholars who deal with our subject in this manner not only ignore religion as a phenomenon sui generis, but are unable to see the wood for the trees. The unity of the Egyptian people is an established fact with respect to language, material culture, and even physique. It would be absurd to assume that there did not exist a corresponding unity in the domain of the spirit. There we go. That’s ma’at. Far from a series of chaotic, loosely connected cult centers, Egyptian religion was based around the central, uniting belief in ma’at: the existence, and power, of a force of pure truth, balance, harmony, and justice. Ma’at was essential cosmic order and all that was right. Ma’at was ultimate truth, and it was every person’s job to live according to that truth — both for individual benefit and for the overarching good of all. Ma’at was a religious concept, yes; but it wasn't just a sacred one. It was a scientific one. It was a law like gravity. Ma’at mattered. Frankly, it matters, but I won’t digress there here. Instead, here is what Wikipedia has to say about it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maat posted:Maat represents the ethical and moral principle that all Egyptian citizens were expected to follow throughout their daily lives. They were expected to act with honor and truth in matters that involve family, the community, the nation, the environment, and the gods. And a third translation of that section on ma’at I’ve quoted twice already in this thread from Instructions of Ptahhotep. www.sofiatopia.org/maat/ptahhotep.htm posted:Great is Maat, lasting in effect. So let’s actually talk about this section now. I keep quoting it because of all of the Teachings of Ptahhotep, it’s my favorite by a lot. I love the feel of its description of ma’at; I love that because so many people have translated these particular papyri, this particular verse, there are so many versions of this description all over libraries and academic facilities and the Internet. All over the world, so many languages, and still so much variance even within those languages, and they’re all striving to describe the truth of the verse that is, itself, describing pure Truth. Truth yearning for truth. It’s gorgeous. I love it. It’s holy. Ma’at. Ma’at is a force that affects not just the world, but an individual. A person who consistently acts with ma’at — who remains in tune with the cosmos — will benefit from their wisdom; a person who is unjust and disordered will face consequences both spiritual and practical. This was believed, and so philosophy developed around it. (This is where I could digress toward covering that paper I posted several days ago about ma’at and rhetoric being used as religious magic; perhaps I can come back to this. But not now.) So now, we have established a definition of ma’at. We understand that seeking and achieving ma’at was of ultimate importance to the people of the time — not just in a general religious sense, but so as to participate as a member of the cosmic order. We see how putting its philosophy to paper could become what a majority of the proverbs and teachings of Egyptian wisdom texts sought to express to readers from the Middle Kingdom onwards. I know there was a little back-and-forth a page or two ago about which periods were being asked about when two fish originally inquired after Egyptian philosophers. Wisdom texts like Ptahhotep’s (link to the translation I quoted above; it is at the bottom of the page, following what I remember being a long and very beefy essay that not everybody here will want to or even should spare the time to read but at least two people here are going to loving love) and Dispute between a man and his Ba (same link as I provided last page for this one, I like its formatting) began originating in the Middle Kingdom. They were part of a genre called sebayt. This is from Wikipedia’s page for sebayt: quote:Many of the earliest Sebayt claim to have been written in the third millennium BCE, during the Old Kingdom, but it is now generally agreed that they were actually composed later, beginning in the Middle Kingdom (c.1991–1786 BCE). This fictitious attribution to authors of a more distant past was perhaps intended to give the texts greater authority. That page actually includes this list of writers, which is taken from a New Kingdom text credited there as Eulogy of Dead Writers: quote:Is there anyone here like Hordedef? So, Tulip, I guess there’s an answer to your question earlier, about whether primary sources gave import to specific authors of ideas. Definitely. There were a lot of nameless scribes involved in the publishing industry, such as it was, too, but such is the case with every civilization; and as discussed in this article, scribes were a respected profession in the day regardless. “Immortality of Writers in Ancient Egypt” posted:The inscriptions were set down by scribes, among the most highly respected professions in Egypt, and while most of their works have other people, professions, or events as subject matter, there are a number which celebrate the occupation of scribe above all others. The most famous of these is The Satire of the Trades (from the Middle Kingdom, 2040-1782 BCE) in which a father encourages his son to become a scribe because it is better than any other profession. Another well-known work, this one from the New Kingdom (c. 1570 - c. 1069 BCE), is A Schoolbook or Be a Scribe which delivers the same message, this time from a teacher to a lazy student. Incidentally, “The Immortality of Writers” is another translation of the same work that Wikipedia refers to above as “Eulogy of Dead Writers.” Those are some pretty different vibes, translators. “Immortality of Writers in Ancient Egypt” posted:There is another work from the New Kingdom along these same lines which, in addition to listing the many earthly benefits of the scribal profession, make clear that it is the one sure path to eternal life: The Immortality of Writers (also known as The Endurance of Writing: A Eulogy to Dead Authors from Papyrus Chester Beatty IV (registered in the British Museum as number 10684, Verso 2,5-3,11). The poem makes clear that, even though everyone, no matter their occupation or social class, needed to be honored through remembrance after death, a scribe would be remembered, not only by family and friends, but by a much larger audience through the works they left behind. The work itself, Miriam Lichtheim’s translation provided by the aforelinked article. I liked the article and endorse click-throughs, but the poem is worth reproducing here. The Immortality of Writers posted:If you but do this, you are versed in writings. So that’s an example of a New Kingdom philosophical text. But Bird! You say. You just spent all this time talking about how Egyptian philosophy is inseparable from Egyptian religion. That poem isn’t connected to religion at all! It definitely is, and asserting otherwise makes you sound a bit like those other academics Frankfort was grousing about in his excerpts earlier if I’m being honest with you. You either didn't read any of the articles about the explicit and very non-secular power of language and rhetoric, or you have already forgotten them. But for now this post has gotten very long and I feel as though it will only continue getting longer if I let it. Let’s go back to Ptahhotep. Do you want a fourth translation of that drat ma’at stanza? That’s right hell yes you do. quote:[Maat] is great, and (its) keenness enduring. I’m taking a liberty with this particular quotation and turning the translator’s choice of “what is right” back to the word itself. But look, now you’ve all seen four versions of this verse of the Instructions of Ptahhotep, two within the bounds of this very post, and I think you all understand what each author/translator is striving to express far better than you would have with just any given one. Maat is beautiful, and its effect endures. It has not wavered since the day of Creation. He who transgresses its laws is punished; A man who chooses greed will suffer for it. Selfishness may amass wealth, But it crumbles in the face of Truth. Do not say ‘I take what I want’; Say rather, ‘I take what I must.’ The strength of Maat is that it lasts; We will say, ‘it has been here always.’ Yeah. Something like that, I think. Great. Very ma’at, much truth. But wait — now that I’ve produced yet another version of the Instructions (/Maxims/Teachings) for you, you’re not off the hook just yet. Here’s the verse that follows that one. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/literature/ptahhotep.html posted:Do not cause fear among people That version’s all right, but there’s a reason this translation only made it onto my list as option number four. I have a fifth option, but just like the Frankfort book we started out with, it’s in a physical copy rather than being something I can copy and paste. Thus number five. We’ll start settling things down a little and just look at that new-to-us verse just above. The Maxims of Ptahhotep, vis a vis Zbynek Zába posted:Do not stir up fear in people, Four additional lines weren’t present in the previous translation; they are included in this print version. quote:(For) it is not what men devise that comes to pass, Okay friends. I have fully written more words in this post than I have written on the Something Awful Dot Com Forums in an entire year. I’m not sure how much of it is even directly an answer to two fish’s original request, all things told; but by God it’s too late to turn back now, and you all did tell me very nicely that I should go ahead and , so I’m gonna. If nothing else, it’s definitely a post at least mostly about ancient history, in the ancient history thread, with lots of quotes, and even several citations.Lead out in cuffs posted:Yeah, welcome to the thread! This is way more interesting than the silly Vegeta derail I started. I’m from PYF, derails don’t scare me  unless I accidentally start themYes, it very much does. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2023 07:20
|
|
|
quote:They knew not how to leave heirs
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2023 07:38
|
|
|
LITERALLY A BIRD posted:Hahaha, bless, thank you pals
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2023 08:16
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Plase continue postin' o Bird, this stuff rules. I am glad to hear the ancient Egyptians appear to have been sound on the philosophy basis other than what I had gathered from exhibits, which can be summarized as 'they sure did like living in Egypt' Well where else were you going to go? Assyria, where they nail people's skins to the city walls? Greece, full of sex creeps who run around with their dicks hanging out? The lands of the blond people way up north? Those dirty fuckers can't even read. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2023 19:27
|
|
|
Nessus posted:Plase continue postin' o Bird, this stuff rules. I am glad to hear the ancient Egyptians appear to have been sound on the philosophy basis other than what I had gathered from exhibits, which can be summarized as 'they sure did like living in Egypt'  thank you, pleased to be able to share!Since that post was mostly about the Instructions of Ptahhotep, inasmuch as it was about any one piece of literature, and I have pulled my copy of the aptly titled Literature of Ancient Egypt off the bookshelf for the first time in a bit, I will introduce The Instruction of Amenemope to conversation. It’s a New Kingdom one; here’s what Wikipedia says. quote:Instruction of Amenemope (also called Instructions of Amenemopet, Wisdom of Amenemopet) is a literary work composed in Ancient Egypt, most likely during the Ramesside Period (ca. 1300–1075 BCE); it contains thirty chapters of advice for successful living, ostensibly written by the scribe Amenemope son of Kanakht as a legacy for his son. A characteristic product of the New Kingdom “Age of Personal Piety”, the work reflects on the inner qualities, attitudes, and behaviors required for a happy life in the face of increasingly difficult social and economic circumstances. It is widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of ancient near-eastern wisdom literature and has been of particular interest to modern scholars because of its similarity to the later biblical Book of Proverbs. Oh yeah. There’s the Proverbs thing too, that’s very interesting but somebody else could talk about that better if they wanted to probably. The Wiki page linked above goes into it, but I just want their synopsis. Wikipedia posted:Amenemope belongs to the literary genre of "instruction" (Egyptian sebayt). It is the culmination of centuries of development going back to the Instruction of Ptahhotep in the Old Kingdom but reflects a shift in values characteristic of the New Kingdom's "Age of Personal Piety": away from material success attained through practical action, and towards inner peace achieved through patient endurance and passive acceptance of an inscrutable divine will. The author takes for granted the principles of natural law and concentrates on the deeper matters of conscience. He urges the reader to defend the weaker classes of society and to respect the elderly, widows and the poor, while he condemns abuses of power or authority. The author draws an emphatic contrast between the "silent man", who goes about his business without drawing attention or demanding his rights, and the "heated man", who makes a nuisance of himself and presses petty grievances. Contrary to worldly expectation, the author assures that the former will ultimately receive divine blessing, while the latter will inevitably go to destruction. Amenemope counsels modesty, self-control, generosity, and scrupulous honesty, while discouraging pride, impetuosity, self-advancement, fraud, and perjury—not only out of respect for Maat, the cosmic principle of right order, but also because "attempts to gain advantage to the detriment of others incur condemnation, confuse the plans of god, and lead inexorably to disgrace and punishment." Instruction of Amenemope is my personal posting bible. It’s got some good stuff, I am being 100 percent sincere right now  I’m going to share some bits in the interest of “examples of the genre”. Transcribed from my copy of Literature, Advice For Posting.“Instruction of Amenemope”, The Literature of Ancient Egypt, 2003 posted:Do not get into a quarrel with the argumentative man Don’t pick fights with people looking to pick fights. Instruction of Amenemope posted:Do not address an intemperate man in unrighteousness Don’t be two-faced. Instruction of Amenemope posted:Do not provoke your adversary; Be respectful and stay cool. Here’s one more. It doesn't fit into my posting theme but it’s a good one and I like it. Instruction of Amenemope posted:Do not turn people away from crossing the river This is a complete translation for those interested, which as I scan it now is the same as my printed copy. Nice! It’s a good translation. But also damnit, I could have saved myself a little time not typing those out by hand.  http://www.touregypt.net/instructionofamenemope.htm LITERALLY A BIRD fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Jul 24, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2023 20:06
|
|
|
Philosophy in general is pretty inextricable from one's spiritual view of the world, including atheism and agnosticism. There's incredibly extensive philosophical arguments within every religion imaginable for a reason. It's not surprising that ancient ones have them too, and while most of us know about particular gods and myths about the origin of the world and the afterlife, the ideals and values day-to-day society espoused are just as important. The apparent emphasis on truthfulness, politeness and not rising to anger unless you have a good reason is interesting. Reminds me of what I've heard about ancient Persia and how 'truth' was apparently more or less to them what 'freedom' is to the USA. (And probably with everything you can draw from that analogy) vvv: Well of course. Also amusing that the idea of 'magic' and 'religion' as seperate things is very new and relatively fringe in the grand scheme of things, though the ancient Greeks did have the idea of a 'secular' magic user. Ghost Leviathan fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Jul 24, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2023 10:26
|
|
|
sanctioned legalized magic first, philosophy second. or maybe third or fourth after being a place to enforce elite power and a place to shove spare elites
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2023 10:31
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:The apparent emphasis on truthfulness, politeness and not rising to anger unless you have a good reason is interesting. Reminds me of what I've heard about ancient Persia and how 'truth' was apparently more or less to them what 'freedom' is to the USA. (And probably with everything you can draw from that analogy) The Blinding of Truth by Falsehood from the 19th Dynasty (I wasn't going to keep taking over the thread with Egyptian literature and philosophy but nobody else has posted for days, so, whatever )    A plain text English rendition: https://egyptopia.com/en/articles/Egypt/history-of-egypt/The-Tale-of-The-Blind-Truth-of-Maat.s.29.13393/ posted:This myth is one of the most interesting myths in the ancient Egyptian mythology that gives many moral lessons and highlights the value of justice. It is a story of two brothers: the good one called Truth, and the vicious one called Falsehood. The former borrowed the knife of his brother and unfortunately lost it, and this gave the chance for his vicious and hateful brother to harm him. Truth asked him to accept another typical knife, but Falsehood refused and when they stood before the nine gods of the court he claimed that his one was incomparable knife whose blade was made of the mountain of El's copper and whose handle from the Coptos' woods. Thus the court gave him the right to say any judgment he sees that it would satisfy him. He asked to blind one of his brother's eyes and make him the doorkeeper of his home. Whenever Falsehood saw his brother, he remembered his sin and this motivated him to command his servants to attack Truth and then leave him in the desert to be devoured by its wild monsters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blinding_of_Truth_by_Falsehood Implications of "The Blinding of Truth by Falsehood" posted:There are many implications. Some of these consequences are religious and cultural. One of them is the importance and popularity of certain myths in Ancient Egypt. The relationship between myth and literature in Ancient Egypt is that myths are generally integrated into literature, and "The Blinding of Truth by Falsehood" chooses to integrate the Osiris and the Horus and Seth/Set myths (Baines 377; Griffiths 90). Despite the many parallels to these two myths, it is only a partial allegory rather than a full one (Griffiths 90). It only concerns the names of the characters and is not used enough to make this story a full allegory (Griffiths 90-91). Edit to add some personal commentary in addition to the photos/great blocks of quoted text. Early mythology being reworked into later allegory, so as to maintain its internal core but be sure the message is emphasized over the trappings, is interesting to me; like that Wikipedia block says, both the resurrection of Osiris and the Contendings of Horus and Set have very visible influences on Truth and Falsehood. That shift from Divine mythology to modern (for the time) parable is reflective of the New Kingdom being that “age of personal piety”, as mentioned in my post above. I am really fond of the parable itself, too, outside of the questionable manifestation of gendered roles within it (themselves in contrast to earlier cultural egalitarianism). Truth makes a mistake, upon which Falsehood immediately capitalizes. Truth suffers due to their (his in the story; but Ma’at/Truth had heretofore typically been personified as female) mistake and Falsehood’s malice. After a while, however, a truth-seeker comes along and susses out that something has gone terribly awry; upon learning this they set about making it right. The truth-seeker exposes Falsehood through the latter’s own greed and machinations and, at long last, Truth and justice are restored, as they always and inevitably will be. LITERALLY A BIRD fucked around with this message at 18:06 on Jul 27, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2023 17:36
|
|
|
Yeah Lol the Contendings of Horus and Set is great. Gotta love when the foundational myth of a huge religion features gay sex, with cum as a central plot device. Incidentally, have you read Myth And Symbol In Ancient Egypt by JR Clark? It's pretty old, and likely dated in a lot of ways, but I've seen it described as one of the few texts that really gets into the head of Ancient Egyptian spirituality. I really enjoyed it. (Seems to be on the Internet Archive, where it is probably not  . Also available in paperback.)
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2023 20:29
|
|
|
My favorite trivia relating to that part of the myth is that the Egyptian word for semen, mtwt, also means "venom".  https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/mtwt I haven't read that book but I absolutely will! Thank you for the lead, Lead 
|
|
#
?
Jul 27, 2023 23:46
|
|
|
LITERALLY A BIRD posted:My favorite trivia relating to that part of the myth is that the Egyptian word for semen, mtwt, also means "venom". Hey baby, wanna see my spitting cobra 
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 01:26
|
|
|
That explains the Tom Hardy Venom movies.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 10:06
|
|
|
I occasionally teach a class on Egyptian mythology and telling them about the Contendings of Horus and Set inevitably gets laughs. It's just an excellent set of stories. Greek mythology may be horribly incestuous and lots of bad behavior on display but I feel that Egyptian myth is the best divine soap opera. It has it all! Secret children, hidden parentage, an endless court case, dream sequences, people falling into comas, it has everything.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 13:02
|
|
|
There's been quite a lot of comparisons between ancient religion/mythology and soap operas, especially as they tend to be long-running stories told by many different writers (few of which are necessarily literate) often having larger-than-life archetypical characters and subject to melodrama, retcons, forgetfulness of previous events, repurposing of ancient plot threads, incorporation of any remotely plausible plot device that may or may not come up again, and tangled family trees as a result of all this mess. (See also: Pro wrestling, superhero comics) And then you have several thousand years worth of it between what might as well be different civilizations sharing the same geographical regions, reconstructed mostly from second to third hand accounts at best and figuring out what we can from tomb inscriptions. I got a huge pretty book called Ancient Egypt: The Definitive Visual History. It's a DK Books one where the text is pretty eh but the pictures, goddamn the pictures are amazing. It did bring up how we actually do have some stories from the ancient Egyptians that don't revolve around the gods, ranging from what we'd fall fantasy stories and what seem like fairy tales to travel ones that might plausibly be biographies of real people. Also discussion about how it seems the iconic Egyptian fresco and statue style we know seems to be a particular house style for tombs and monuments; strict and rather formulaic, but proportionate and easy to scale up. They've even found the grids that artists and sculptors used to plan them out. I do wonder how much of ancient mythology is gods-as-characters not necessarily treated as scripture, but using religion as a setting and themes for entertainment. Every religion has its flavours of that even and perhaps especially among strong believers, look at The Divine Comedy, a lot of Arthurian fiction (which is, interestingly, treated as effectively its own mythology nowadays) and for a more modern example, Narnia. Which can also become amusing given Dante's idea of Hell has become almost literal canon at this point.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 13:38
|
|
|
Ghost Leviathan posted:
You see this really well with Homer. You can Tl;dr the basic plot of the Iliad and odyssey down to a short paragraph, but all the rest of it is probably less a single story and more a body of what amount to campfire stories that people added to and embellished and tweaked for a thousand years.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 13:45
|
|
|
LITERALLY A BIRD posted:...excepting only an Atenism-shaped cutout toward the rear of the New Kingdom... One of my favorite YouTubers just put out a video on Akhenaten and Atenism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEfGI-8QRgc This guy's channel has a lot of videos on modern religious beliefs too, but his dissertation was on early Christian magical amulets or something like that, so he does a decent amount of ancient history stuff too. Curse tablets, things like that.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 13:52
|
|
|
It's true, not all Egyptian literature we have revolves around mythology. For example, there's a very silly joke. How do you cheer up a sad and depressed Pharaoh? Dress the prettiest dancing girls in the palace in fishnets and tell him to go fishing.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 16:07
|
|
|
Egypt is actually somewhat unusual in the ancient world for the large amount of non-mytholgoical literature they produced. Works like Sinhue and the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, which have only fairly limited mythological elements, were very popular in Egyptian scribal circles, but are not well known today.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 16:55
|
|
|
That's what happens when you don't have late-stage capitalism corporations that can constantly reboot and remake properties. I feel sorry for them.
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 17:07
|
|
|
CrypticFox posted:Egypt is actually somewhat unusual in the ancient world for the large amount of non-mytholgoical literature they produced. Works like Sinhue and the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor, which have only fairly limited mythological elements, were very popular in Egyptian scribal circles, but are not well known today. The Shipwrecked Sailor, transcribed from, again, the third edition of Literature of Ancient Egypt, the long way this time because I don’t like how the photos look in the previous post. The reduction of mythological elements is definitely on display here, but I would argue a philosophical core remains. The mythology of ancient Egypt in general has enough layered elements of religious, political, and environmental influence that talking about something like the Contendings would be better served by one of you with history degrees than by me; I lack an ability to discuss mythological elements as insightfully as they deserve, as I tend to be more interested in the moral and ethical themes in any given literature piece. That said, it was the early mythological literature that first drew me into ancient Egypt when I was young enough to still be visiting kids’ sections of bookstores and libraries, and it was the early mythological literature that created the foundation for all the enormous bodies of work that arose from the Middle Kingdom onwards. I understand a lot of the shift from fantastic stories of Gods to moral stories of man developing as, too, the cultural perception of their world became more complex and required more of the moving pieces of foundational mythology to be drawn in and rooted in practical wisdom. The Shipwrecked Sailor is dated to some time after 2000 BCE. A commanding officer and his crew had been sent on some sort of trading or exploration mission at Pharaoh’s behest; the first pages of the story are suspected to be missing. It begins as the commander is in conversation with one of his sailors regarding the apparently unsuccessful mission. They have returned home safely, but seemingly without any sort of material good or information that might accomplish good cheer. The commander is despairing, and the sailor attempts to help by telling him of the time he had spent as an eponymous shipwrecked sailor on an island inhabited only by one other being: an enormous serpent, who tells the sailor a tale of his own and predicts his return to Egypt. quote:Then the able retainer spoke: A pause here to note that the commander, as mentioned, appears to be stressin’ over the forthcoming need to report to the pharoah on their suboptimal mission results. Our sailor/retainer advises his commander to pull himself together. He reminds him, “The speech of a man can save him, and his words can cause indulgence for him.” Since we’ve looked at several pieces of philosophical literature already that revolve around ma’at and the power of words and speech, you all understand what he is saying here: he’s saying I know you’re worried, but speak with ma’at, with good rhetoric, and things will be fine. “Yet do only as you wish; for speaking to you is tiresome,” he adds. “But you don’t have to take my advice. I just need to say it because you need to chill out, you’re being exhausting.” quote:Now I shall tell you something similar mtwt quote:He was 30 cubits long, I think something important to note here is that our sailor describes this serpent with the terms of Divinity, even if it is not named as such. The Gods were consistently described as having flesh and skin of gold, and hair of lapis lazuli; further the serpent itself is an animal symbolizing Divine magic and power, as demonstrated, for example, by the uraeus-cobras on pharoahic regalia. quote:He opened his mouth toward me, Our sailor is in a God’s demesne. quote:Then I answered him And this is supported by the couplet above. What is being described is the dua, or praise position of worship, where a petitioner before a Deity lifts their arms in respect toward them. You’ve seen it in temple art. The serpent is being addressed as a God, or at least as some form of powerful Divine being. quote:I said to him: A pause here. I personally interpret this talk of serpents as, again, the spirits of the Gods Themselves. This story is, as aforementioned, from the Middle Kingdom: well into a time considered to be an age of man, rather than Gods. The Gods, within the minds of the people, had at one time been present here on our Earth, in our world, but such was no longer the case. “The Age of Gods” is referred to in other literature at times. I interpret the serpent speaking to our protagonist as the ka or spirit of the Creator-God, possibly Ra-Heruakhety. The other serpents, the children and siblings: other Gods’ ka. The daughter, explicitly set apart from the group of potentially Divine serpents, is in this understanding the Goddess Ma’at, who is herself a mythological figure born from a desire to personify the concept ma’at and considered to be a daughter of the Creator, but not usually a cast member of the Divine mythological legends. She is of the Gods, but not directly one of them — and further, ma’at, of course, whether accomplished by man or by God, is brought about through wisdom, through wise speech and action. Make sense? The Serpent continues: quote:
The sailor and I are on similar pages. quote:But then he laughed at me for what I had said Did not listen to a word our man said. Tiresome indeed. quote:It has come from beginning to end as found in writing, Now, what is the point of this whole tale? Why did the sailor/now-retainer spend so much breath relating the story of the serpent back to the commander to strengthen his spirit, when there is a pretty noticeable defining difference between the end of the sailor’s tale and the end of the current tale (eg, the sailor came back with treasure; the commander seemingly this time has not)? I would suggest we can once again say the story is, at least in part, about ma’at. In this case, it points to ma’at’s role as magical rhetoric in protecting a person from a social superior’s wrath. The commander is deeply anxious about explaining his failure to the Sovereign. The sailor tries to assure the commander that if he speaks with confidence, honesty, and elegance, all will be well, despite what seems like dire circumstance. The sailor expresses that he is certain good speech will protect the commander, because he knows that Divinity — and through that Divinity ma’at — still exists and is capable of affecting interactions within a modern world. He knows this not because he has merely been told so; he has experienced Divinity personally. He has spoken with and been saved by it himself. He has firsthand knowledge of its power. Trust in your wise speech, commander, he advises. Listen to my words; trust in what I have seen and have now told you. The commander remains unconvinced, but hey: it’s like we said at the very beginning. It’s just advice. Do only as you wish.  
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 19:27
|
|
|
egyptology exists as a separate field because the ancient egyptians ability to keep stuff (what with the endless desert mere feet from settlements) was head and shoulders above any other ancient polity, so we have like random rear end receipts for poo poo in new kingdom egypt whereas we have substantively nothing for far far younger stuff in mesoamerica forex so its a lotta evidentiary selection effect too
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 19:48
|
|
|
I was under the impression that the Great Green was the Mediterranean?
|
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 20:00
|
|
|
bob dobbs is dead posted:egyptology exists as a separate field because the ancient egyptians ability to keep stuff (what with the endless desert mere feet from settlements) was head and shoulders above any other ancient polity, so we have like random rear end receipts for poo poo in new kingdom egypt whereas we have substantively nothing for far far younger stuff in mesoamerica forex That makes sense! And then because so many things are incidentally preserved, we overlook the huge gaps of information left by time and the desert destroying other parts of the historical cultural record. There’s a deity of whom I’m particularly fond, Nemty, whose cults specifically cast his statues and other offerings in silver because he had declared, “Gold is an abomination unto me in my city” (he had reasons). But silver items corrode and are destroyed by the desert over time, unlike gold and the favored precious stones, so comparatively very few Egyptian silver items tend to be found and recovered. So for example we — or I, personally, anyway — are left to wonder how often the geographically rarer metal silver was used for other Gods, as well, and we simply have very little record of it by comparison to the omnipresent, well-preserved gold. Mad Hamish posted:I was under the impression that the Great Green was the Mediterranean? I could buy Mediterranean. My book gave me the choices of Red Sea or Nile, and Nile felt more correct to me of those two. Specifically it said: quote:This expression has traditionally been regarded as the Red Sea. Recent scholarship, however, has attempted to show that the term must refer to the Nile itself. See Claude Vandersleyen, “En relisant le Naufrage,” in S. Israelit-Groll, ed., Studies in Egyptology Presented to Miriam Lichtheim, vol 2 (Jerusalem, 1990), 1019-24; Wadj our: Un autre aspect de la valee du Nil (Brussels, 1999). I would probably add that within the context of this particular tale, Red Sea or Nile both make more geographical sense than the Mediterranean. I say this because the Serpent is named the Prince of Punt; the Land of Punt was usually agreed to be located south-easterly of Egypt. This geography is implied too by the mention of "sailing north" away from the serpent's island at the end. LITERALLY A BIRD fucked around with this message at 23:23 on Jul 28, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jul 28, 2023 20:00
|
|
|
Y'know I always thought the Land of Punt was everything up to the opponent's 30 yard line.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2023 13:04
|
|
|
bob dobbs is dead posted:egyptology exists as a separate field because the ancient egyptians ability to keep stuff (what with the endless desert mere feet from settlements) was head and shoulders above any other ancient polity, so we have like random rear end receipts for poo poo in new kingdom egypt whereas we have substantively nothing for far far younger stuff in mesoamerica forex The extent of this is hard to overstate. Papyrology itself is a specific field, and we have mountains of untranslated papyrus to still get through. For Rome, a state which people assume we have a ton of evidence for, an outrageous percentage of the literary evidence is specific to Roman Egypt. We know radically more about how Romans lived and died in Egypt than in Italy, despite 1) historians being way more interested Roman Italy than any other part of Rome and 2) Roman governance being so much longer in Italy.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2023 15:51
|
|
|
Of course, in terms of surviving evidence of daily life, Mesopotamia blows Egypt out of the water. Clay tablets are incredibly durable, and we have literally hundreds of thousands of them from ancient Mesopotamia. In addition, clay tablets tend to be preserved in coherent archives a lot of the time, meaning we can often reconstruct the lives and activities of individuals quite well, whereas Egyptian records are often much more scattered.
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2023 17:18
|
|
|
The Other Place Where We Have Random rear end Receipts For Stuff
|
|
#
?
Jul 29, 2023 17:48
|
|
|
The Fable of the Swallow and the Sea from The Literature of Ancient Egypt, 3rd edition. Introduction, which I think might be longer than the story itself, but that’s okay. quote:This cautionary tale was the last of four Demotic writing exercises composed as model letters on a jug formerly in the Berlin Museum but destroyed in the Second World War. Dating to the Roman era (first to second centuries CE) and probably deriving from Mit Rahina, the epistolary narrative has traditional antecedents in both form and content. Model letters are a feature of Egyptian education and literature from the Middle Kingdom onward. As a satirical letter, this Demotic example continues the genre best typified by the taunting letter of Hori preserved in the papyrus Anastasi I. Here, however, it is the theoretically unassailable Pharaoh himself who is satirized. […] The central imagery of the tale, the immensity of the desert and sea in terms of usual measurements, appears as early as the Amarna hymn of Ay that anticipates the wording of Isaiah 40:12. The Fable of the Swallow and the Sea. quote:The [petition of] Ausky, the chief of the land of Arabia, before Pharaoh: Footnote: quote:*An Egyptian idiom signifying happiness or good fortune. You might think I like this one because it’s about a bird, and you’d be right. But specifically I also really like the Egyptian idiom for which my book’s translator included a helpful footnote. “Her eyes wide” has a sort of optimistic joy to it, and I like that since it’s idiomatic of good fortune it’s justified optimism, too. Theoretically.  And also, yeah, it’s a really cute mental image on a little swallow-bird. Fight me.While trying to look up other versions of that fable to suss out a suspected translator quirk I came across a neat related paper: Towards Sunrise: Innovations in the Representations of the Swallow in the Funerary Papyri of the Twenty-First Dynasty. quote:Abstract: I gave it just a cursory first read, so don’t have much commentary of my own, but suspect it’s good Ancient History for the Ancient History thread. And the conclusions spun out from these paragraphs in particular delight me. quote:The barn swallow, like other migratory birds, intrigued the ancient Egyptians, as they considered them to be of a mythical nature. They believed that they had come from the dark and damp region of the far north, in which they were human-headed birds speaking the language of man. They also believed that when these human-headed birds arrived in Egypt, the sunlight would make them turn fully into birds.11 Ba-rn swallows, eh? Love all of this. I gotta take a better look at this person’s sources before I run around exclaiming my new Egypt/Bird Facts out loud but heck, in the meanwhile, I can exclaim them here.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2023 02:36
|
|
|
Also, Cryptic (and whomever else), could I invite you to share a bit about Mesopotamian myth or literature if that's your passion? I must admit to a deep fondness for Inanna-Ishtar and all her escapades.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2023 17:36
|
|
|
Hey, just wanted to let you know that I've been following along with this thread and I've been really enjoying the posts, thank you for sharing everything. Didn't have anything new to contribute to the conversation for the last few days so I've just been reading it and learning so much. On a different and earlier note, I had another question come to mind to me today. With regards to human migration in prehistory, you have the waves of expansion of our species out of Africa, settling Europe, Asia, the Americas, etc. That would explain the peopling of the continents outside of where we came from, but what is often portrayed just seems one-directional, and that's basically how I learned it growing up from school and documentaries. What about early migrations back into Africa? Do we have any archaeological records of that occurring?
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2023 02:15
|
|
|
Yes, there's some evidence of people migrating back into Africa from Europe and even more for western Asia. There's also good evidence for American migration back to Asia. Most of the data comes from genetic analysis so it's fairly new.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2023 02:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 11, 2024 15:03 |
|
|
Oh, see, that's very interesting. I wonder how they managed to get through the Sahara once desertification wrapped up. How about once we're out of the neolithic and into early civilizations, how much contact was going on across the Sahara? Were any of the ancient empires curious enough to mount expeditions, or was sub-Saharan Africa too far to be of interest? How about the inverse, did any sub-Saharan civilizations try exploring north?
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2023 02:33
|
|